Explore the harvester

In its heyday the Sunshine stripper harvester represented the cutting edge of farming technology. It could strip, thresh, winnow and bag grain in one operation, drastically reducing the number of people needed to harvest a crop.

The National Museum of Australia’s stripper harvester was one of 2161 harvesters built at the Sunshine Harvester Works in 1911. It was used for many years on Wood Dale, a farm near Cootamundra in New South Wales.

Museum Victoria.

The Museum's Sunshine harvester

How does a Sunshine stripper harvester work?

National Museum of Australia and Roar Film

Watch a Sunshine harvester at work in the field, 1925

Factory to Farm: Making Agricultural Implements in Australia, about 1925. National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.